“Like the clap,” Fascio replied with a grin as he fanned a plume of stale cigarette smoke away.
A moment later Lanskey, Dom and Wilkes walked in, making their way to an open table next to theirs. Baker watched as the last of his unit entered, stowed their rifles and freed their heads of their helmets.
Lanskey shook her head as she walked past to the food processors on the wall, telling Sarge with one look that she hadn’t found anything new. Sarge nodded, turning his gaze back to the slop on his plate. Then he looked up at Talmadge. “Find everything you were looking for?”
Talmadge nodded as he shoved a spoonful of paste in his mouth, glancing unapprovingly at Fascio who blew another thick cloud of smoke towards the ceiling.
“Good,” Sarge said, raising his voice to garner the attention of the others. “Well, the information that Vuong and I have ascertained, is that about three weeks ago, the survey team here on Attis, found a structure that was partially exposed, about three klicks from here. They began excavation on it, and one week ago, for whatever reasons, breached the exterior. Two days later the fine folks here in this complex began to report hearing voices, seeing relatives that had been dead for years, and all manner of other weird shit. Then they decided to start offing themselves, and taking as many others with them as possible. They ran every test imaginable, and came up with nothing. No clue. Which leaves us right here. Now I’m hoping that something on that drive our friend here so desperately needed to acquire can help shed some further light on our current situation.” His gaze fell to Talmadge who paused, spoon poised before his mouth.
Talmadge set the spoon down and wiped his lips with a napkin. “The information I retrieved is classified. Only the highest ranking members of the board are entitled to have access to it. Any sharing of this information will lead to immediate court-martial and imprisonment upon returning to earth. I can’t allow—”
“I hope you’ll pardon my tone Talmadge,” Baker interrupted, “but I could give a fuck less about your court-martial, or petty threats. People are dead here, and I’m not entirely convinced that the threat has been contained, which means my men here, are now in jeopardy of having the same thing happen to them, and if anything happens, to any of my men, because you wanna cover your company’s ass, or your precious job, and decided that it would be best for you to withhold something that could have potentially avoided it, then I’ll be the first to put a bullet between those beady little eyes of yours. So what do you say you share what’s on there with us, or we can take it from you, and lock your ass in one of these perfect, state of the art housing units your company designed until we’re ready to leave?”
Wilkes slid his chair out, standing up to move closer to Talmadge.
Talmadge held his seat. He burned within, a fury he was sure he hadn’t felt before. His mind was a blur of everything he wanted to do to the sergeant, the things he would do when they returned, but at that moment, everyone’s gaze fell upon him, and he knew there was nothing he could do.
‘Checkmate.’
Talmadge took a deep breath, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling the drive out. He set it on the table in front of him and stood up, walking out of the room and to one of the units down the hall. His presence there would only serve to get him into a situation that the soldiers could possibly use for leverage, and at the moment, they had nothing on him. His actions were still clean, and in the best interest of the company.
“Well that’s more like it,” Baker said, turning his gaze to Vuong. “Let’s see what you can get off that.”
Vuong nodded, rising from his chair and moving to take the nanodrive. He sat down and pressed a series of buttons on his holowrist. A blue circle illuminated around the drive on the table, and a holographic display of the contents snapped into view; dozens of circular folders containing all the information the facility had procured since inhabitation. The others sat watching as Vuong filtered through the files. After a moment the screen slowed and he looked up. “I think we have something Sarge.”
Baker looked at the holographic image of a circular folder with the Xenocorp logo on the front hanging in the air. The words below it read AS1.
“One of the scientists mentioned archeological site one in one of their reports,” Vuong said, opening the folder, which fanned out across the space between them. Pictures and documents hovered in the air, hundreds of each, neatly stacked like a pressed pile of paper. Vuong moved his hand to the photographs and spread his fingers out, fanning the photographs, which he began to skip flip through with a wave of his hand. The images were of the surface of the planet, and a small pyramid shape sticking out of the ground. As the pictures flowed past, more and more of the structure was excavated, until the last of the pictures were the pyramid standing nearly a three hundred feet deep from the bottom of the site. The pictures that followed that were close ups of the pyramid’s surface. All along the base were inscriptions in what appeared to be a language that none of them had ever seen before. Some of the markings looked almost like those that accompanied the hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt, but the rest were a series of swirls and circular patterns. Vuong flipped through another handful of pictures until they began to show the breach the crew had made into the side. After that were a dozen photographs of a dimly lit tunnel leading inwards. Then the pictures stopped.
“It looks like that’s it,” Vuong said, turning his gaze to the Sarge. The rest of the group was silent, all contemplating what they had just seen in their own way.
“I think maybe we need to see this first hand,” Baker said after a moment, his gaze moving back to the last image of a dark hallway that disappeared into blackness.
“Sarge—” Wilkes began, starting his speech about leaving best alone and how they hadn’t been sent there for that.
“We leave at zero six,” Baker replied, ignoring the lance corporal’s objection. “Wilkes, you just drew the short straw. You’re first up on fire watch. After that I want Fascio, then Mills. Two hour shifts. I’ll see you ladies in the morning.”
Sarge stood up, making his way out of the room.
“Guess he won’t be partaking in any of this then,” Hawkes said, smiling as he pulled the bottle of whiskey from his vest and set it on the table.
“Oh shit,” Vuong chuckled. “And just what do we have here?”
“Came across this in the director’s office,” Hawkes smiled. “Pretty sure he won’t mind if we put a little dent in it.”
The rest of the squad smiled as he poured himself a glass and passed the bottle around. For the next two hours they were just friends, sitting together chatting over a couple glasses of booze. The facility around them didn’t exist, the death and mutilation had faded to the back, and most of the unit didn’t even notice the smell that still grew increasingly rank in the halls. They knew it would be there waiting for them in the morning, that there was much more they hadn’t even yet to see. But for now, in the chow hall, they were back in their barracks on earth, sharing stories and reminiscing about the days of past.
Sarge slept peacefully, falling asleep nearly moments after lying his head on the pillow. It had been some time since he had rested in a bed as comfortable as the one he now lay in. He’d drifted off and now found himself standing in his old house; the one he had lived in before his wife and daughter had been taken from him. The sun was shining brightly through the bedroom window and he could hear light laughter coming from downstairs. ‘Caroline?’ he thought to himself as the vision shifted around him. He started towards the door, his pace quickening as the sound of his daughter giggling fell into his ears. “Moni?” he whispered as the stairs leading to the living room approached. He started down, taking them carefully as a tear began to work its way down his cheek. His heart began to swell in his chest. He kept moving downwards, calling out, “Caroline, Moni?” When he hit the bottom of the stairs he started towards the kitchen, and the sound of their voices. He could feel his pace quickening, his feet moving faster along the carpet. Then h
e reached the kitchen door and stopped. Spread out in front of him, just inside the doorway, scattered across the black and white linoleum floor were pieces of metal and plastic. He looked up and found himself standing in the middle of an intersection. The street was littered in a sea of broken glass and plastic, which glittered as the mid-day sun hit against it and he could smell the acrid stench of melted plastic and burnt metal in the air. He slowly stepped forward, recognizing the car that lay upside down, crumpled around the light pole fifty feet away. Another tear fell from his eye. He started towards the wreckage, passing a large truck with its engine sitting where the driver had been moments before, a smoking pile of debris scattered around it. He quickened to a jog, dashing as quickly as he could to the overturned sedan. “Caroline!” he shouted, panic building. “Moni!!” He reached the car and climbed atop it, peering down into the interior from the crumpled side window. Lying crumpled within were the still corpses of his wife and daughter, deep gouges running across their flesh, their faces blank and crusted with broken glass, eyes pressed closed. He began to shake, his breath coming in short hitches. He stared downwards, his jaw quivering as silent lips formed their names. Then a freezing chill ran across his back and his wife’s eyes shot open.
Sergeant Thomas awoke with a start, salted rivulets down his cheeks as new tears still formed along his eyes. He swallowed hard, peering into the black of the room as his eyes adjusted; the only light coming from a dim overhead that illuminated just enough to see through the darkness. Sweat held his shirt tightly to him, moisture warped with sadness and anguish clinging wetly. As he brought his hands up to wipe the tears away he saw Corlin on the bed across from him. The corporal was silent, staring blankly across the room at a closet that had been left open. He watched him for a moment, the man’s eyes unblinking as his blank gaze peered into the open portal. Another feeling moved in, pressing the sadness to the darkness behind him as it took hold.
“Everything all right?” he asked, his own gaze moving to the empty closet he had cleared when he first entered the room. The other man didn’t respond, didn’t even break his gaze to acknowledge him. The feeling grew, festering deep in his chest. “Corlin, I asked you if everything is fine,” he repeated. Still no response. “Corporal!” he barked, causing Fascio to lift his head from the pillow on the floor to look at him at the outburst.
Corlin slowly turned his gaze to the sergeant. He blinked twice and nodded in the dark. “Sorry Sarge,” he whispered, his voice dry and cracked. “Thought I saw something.”
Baker stared at him for a moment before the other man looked at the closet again and then lay back down in his bed without explanation. Fascio glanced up at him and nodded, a silent question, asking if everything was all right. Baker felt his stomach tighten, the unmistakable que that something wasn’t right. For the next twenty minutes he lay there doing his best to analyze their situation and processing everything he had seen. But eventually his thoughts went back to his dream, and the family he would never go home to again. As he lay there, anxiously waiting sleep to once again pull him away, he brought his hands up to the sides of his head. He’d had the onset of a migraine since that afternoon, and as he lay on his back, he could feel his pulse pounding behind his temples. The pain was getting worse, and he knew the first thing he was going to do when he woke up was chase his breakfast with a handful of Aspirin.
13
“You have the coordinates?” Sarge asked, his spoon piercing into a pile of what was supposed to taste like eggs and cheese.
“Affirm Sarge,” Vuong replied, taking a sip out of a glass of processed orange beverage. “Three klicks northwest. Should be there in less than ten if the rovers are operational. An hour or so on foot.”
“I believe this is yours,” Baker said, sliding the nanodrive across the table at Talmadge who had quietly taken a seat and was eating silently, avoiding conversation with the rest. “And we’re gonna do you one even better. You’re gonna get to inspect your alien structure firsthand. We head out in fifteen. We’re gonna go check it out ourselves and see if we can figure out what the hell it was that they found in there, since apparently there’s nothing on that little drive of yours about it.”
Talmadge stared at the drive for a moment before reaching out to pick it up. He kept his gaze at the table and slid the drive into his vest pocket, then continued eating in silence. He knew there would be no way they could have found, let alone, accessed the encrypted files hidden away. Only the terminals back on earth could open them.
Baker stared at the man who was usually quick to snap and assert his authority. There were dark circles puffed out beneath his eyes and he could see the two day stubble scruffed across his chin. He could see that the man hadn’t slept very well the night before, but hell, he thought to himself, which of them had…? The thought that almost brought a grin to his face was that he knew Talmadge was a clean cut, corporate man, and that it had to be eating him alive to allow himself to go so long without a shower and a shave. An old quip ran through his mind as he pulled his glance away. It truly was the little things.
When they had finished eating they suited up and started their way back to the main landing pad, and the two rovers they had passed on the way in. The odor in the facility had become noticeably worse overnight, and two of the men, and Lanskey, had tied cloth around their faces to block out the assaulting stench. The made their way back past communications and admitting, pausing as they approached the main airlock. It seemed that having the smell accompanying the sight only served to make the situation seem even worse.
“We do this by the numbers,” Baker said, bringing all focus to him. “We go out there, see whatever the hell it is we can find, and then we get back here on the double. Now I know some of you are thinking, this isn’t our mission, and that this isn’t what we are here for, but fact is, we are here, and there is no one else that can find out what happened to these poor bastards, so that objective now falls on us. We’re still awaiting reply from base, so until we get orders otherwise, we’re stuck here, so suck it up. We’re E.M.F., and I’m not worried about some stupid colonist with a wrench taking any of us out, are you?”
“Ooh-rah!”
“Good. Then suit up, and let’s see what these poor bastards unearthed out there.”
The unit engaged their envirosuits, freeing them from the pack on their belts, and pulled it around their arms and legs. When it was clasped at the top of the neck, the suit did the rest, sealing down the back, and fusing every seam. The sleeves sealed to the gloves and the neck to their helmet. In moments the group was suited up and standing in the airlock.
“Let’s take a walk,” Sarge said, nodding to Vuong who engaged the outer door, venting the atmosphere and putting the transport ship into view.
“Portofino,” Sarge said as they made their way to the nearest rover. “Good to go?”
“Read you loud and clear Sarge, over.”
“We’re gonna take ourselves a little field trip. I need you to stay by that radio, and be ready to come get us if we need extract.”
“Roger that Sarge. Ready and waiting.”
“Just like I like em,” Dom clicked across, eliciting a smile and a fist pound from Fascio.
“We know how you like em Dom,” Hawkes clicked across. “Ruffied and young.”
“Just the male ones though,” Mills added with a smile.
“All right ladies, that’s enough.”
The unit approached the rover. It was a ten person transport unit that had run flat tires and a suspension equipped for travel across the martian terrain. As they approached, Baker found himself wondering why in the last two hundred years of technological advances, with the colonization of the moon and deep space travel now commonplace, that the planetary rovers still had the same design as the ones they use on the first visit to the moon those over a century ago; a bulky steel frame with exposed seats, no wind screen and comfort the last thing in mind when designed. He let his gaze fall to the landscape beyond, the t
ingle of exhilaration passing quickly through him. Again he found himself doing something he never thought he would. Another reminder why he had joined the corps, another distraction.
To say the ride across the surface to the site was bumpy, would have been like saying that someone at the facility had simply passed away. The soldiers were jerked back and forth, their internal organs ricocheting off each other, every muscle tense in an attempt to hold their body together. The landscape had always looked relatively smooth in photographs, but as they bounced along, they could see that it was anything other than that. They were halfway there when Wilkes yelled across the comms, “I think I might actually enjoy flying more than this.”
“This is worse than those BS-32’s we were crammed in in Africa,” Fascio yelled back against the roar of the rover’s engine.
“Yeah,” Vuong shouted, “but you might not catch gonorrhea here.”
“Hey man, how the hell was I supposed to know she was a hooker?”
“Maybe because she slept with you..?”
“You got a good point there,” Wilkes shouted back with a smile.
“You might wanna leave your mother out of this,” Fascio shouted, taking one hand of the seat handles to flip him off.”
“Sarge.”
Baker looked up to Vuong who was driving. The soldier was pointing out in front. He let his eyes trace the imaginary line, and then saw what the other was showing him. Barely visible against the endless sea of red and orange, stood a small grey object that stood at a point along the horizon.
“That’s gotta be it,” Vuong shouted, the image on his holowrist confirming the location.
“Bring us as close as possible,” Baker shouted, his gaze not falling from the structure that was growing closer. Ten minutes later they were stopping at the edge of a circular pit that led down to the base of the giant pyramid.
The unit stepped out, making their way to the edge and peered down. Before them stood a structure slightly smaller than the pyramids in Egypt, but with sides that were constructed out of what appeared to be some type of metallic material. It was a dull grey and smooth to a polish, the top of the structure coming together in a point that looked almost needle sharp. There were engravings along the base that seemed to almost glow an iridescent blue color, standing out brightly against the dark surface and they could see the circular rings surrounding it where vehicles had been used to remove the earth it was buried beneath.
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